The Analysis Of The Main Characters' Traumas In Great Expectations From The Perspective Of Trauma Theory

Charles Dickens is one of the greatest British critical realist writers in the 19th century. All his works reflect the complicated social reality in Victorian Age. Great Expectations, one of his later works,tells a story about how "the beautiful future" of the protagonist,Pip,is ruined.For various reasons, including wrong personal values, abuse, failed marriage, wrong parenting and social problems, most of the characters in the novel suffer from psychological trauma to a certain degree.This thesis provides some information about Charles Dickens and his Great Expectations, and the trauma theory that will be employed to study the novel. Next, the thesis analyzes the factors that lead to the main characters' psychological traumas and factors aggravating the traumas, namely, the places of imprisonment and the natural landscape. Also, this thesis illustrates how the main characters in the novel work through their traumas. They manage to free themselves from the psychological shadow by establishing a sense of security,facing up to the trauma and developing a new self. At last,a conclusion is drawn that the analysis of the causes of characters' traumas reveals how personal values, the interpersonal relationship and the society traumatize the characters,reflecting Dickens's discontented attitudes towards the social condition in the Victorian Age. Thus, we can obtain a profound understanding of the significance of the critical realism in this novel.